


Dear Brucie

by Featherly



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Birthday, Depression, Drug Use, Drugs, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Featherly/pseuds/Featherly
Summary: Bruce sits on the roof on his 13th birthday, alone, dreaming of his parents and the reality of his teen years without their guidance.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Dear Brucie

The rain was softer than usual, trailing from the sky in patches. From his view, Bruce could see the areas of Gotham where the rain fell, as well as the parts where it refused to hit. 

He was in his school pants and a T-shirt he usually reserved for his sports classes. He had bare feet which helped him grip the slippery tiles much better than he would have managed with shoes on.  
He stared out over Gotham, his heart hammering as hard as it could go. It was his first milestone without his parents, and despite Alfreds attempts there was a huge part of him that had to acknowledge the tremendous elephant in the room. He should have been sharing the day with his Mum and Dad.  
Instead he was sitting on the roof in the freezing temperatures, an unlit blunt between the fingers of his right hand, which hovered carefully next to his head. 

He had acquired this little device from a kid in the next grade up named Billy. He had scoffed at first when Bruce asked him, but gave one up when Bruce showed him the money to show that he was serious. Billy was destined to be an elicit pharmaceutical salesman for the rest of his life in Bruce’s eyes: the type of kid you didn’t want to associate yourself with, but Bruce had felt so tense all day, so sore from the pulled muscles in his face stretching into a permenant scowl. Billy was the dumbest kid he knew, and he believed that doing business with him only once or a few times was possible, unlike his other potential sources.  
His little blunt was good enough for him on his birthday.  
He felt calmer, as if his throat wouldn’t swell up and block his airways from sadness before the night was over, as it had the previous two years on his birthday. 

He lit a match, half hoping the rain would be enough to put it out before he lit the blunt. He touched the matchtip to it and brought it to his mouth, taking in his first breath of weed.  
He blew the rancid air out, pulled his legs into his chest, and rested his head on his knees with a sigh. He stared off into the city, listening to the sirens blaring in the distance. He immediately felt calmer, albeit a little guilty. 

His half lidded eyes held back the tears he had been threatening to cry all day, but he refused to let them drop yet. “Hap-py Birth-day to you” he whispered hopelessly, “Hap-py Birth-day to yooou” he took another drag and blew it out with a cough, which was followed by a cocky grin. His voice got louder and louder as he sang, until he was almost yelling the final part: “Happ-y Birth-DAY DEAR BRUCIIIIE, HAP-PY BIRTHDAY TO YOOOOU!”  
And with the final verse sung he broke down into tears. 

Alfreds head appeared from the balcony below, sympathetic and cautious. “Master Bruce? May I ask what you’re doing up there?”  
Bruce wiped the tears on his arm and out his head up to the sky to make it look like it was wet from the rain, which may have worked if his eyes weren’t bloodshot and his face wasn’t red and patchy.  
“Just watching the sunset” he replied, trying hastily to conceal the blunt from Alfreds line of vision. 

Alfred took notice of it immediately but said nothing. “Perhaps it would be apt to watch it from the balcony, and not from the roof? You could fall in this weather and I’d have to scrape you off the ground.”  
There was one tense moment where the depressed boy glanced over the side of the roof, past the balcony, and straight at the ground far below, as if Alfreds suggestion had more weight to it than a simple declaration that the roof was a bad place to be when it was raining, where Alfred’s heart thrummed irregularly behind his rib cage at the look of pure contemplation on the youngest and final Wayne’s face.  
“Bruce?” Came his voice again, before Bruce could catch onto that fleeting thought. He reached his hand up and put it on the gutter, inches away from Bruce’s foot, “please come down. Dinner should be ready soon. It’s roast beef, your favourite.” 

Bruce looked at Alfred as if he were seeing him for the first time. “I’ll be down in 5, is that okay?”

Alfred took a deep breath. He wanted to say ‘NO. You aren’t the only one wishing your parents were here today, that anyone else could have come today to see you too. You could have had friends here today, but you said no! You could have had anyone else here but you’re stuck with me. If it could have been any other way, for your sake, I wish it were. I’m all you have Bruce and I am so bloody sorry about it.’  
Instead he noticed the way his dark hair fell into his eyes since it was already growing too long, the way his ankles were starting to show after his pants that would need replacing in less than 2 weeks as he hit another growth spurt, the way his skin was pale and sallow with goosebumps risen on his arms, the illegal calming drug sitting between his fingers poorly hidden and undoubtedly given to him by someone his dead parents wouldn’t approve of if they were alive, the T-shirt that was already see-through from the rain hammering harder than it had been when he had first stepped outside and clung to his budding muscles that would become huge if he worked at them, the deep horrible sadness in his half visible blue irises underneath the dark hair.  
Alfred took these new features in from a glance and said “I’ll have clean dry clothes ready on your bed when you come down” and went to fetch a towel to drop by the balcony door. 

Bruce said a tiny “okay” and glanced back down at his feet. 

The roof around his was wet, and if he shuffled himself around he may have slipped. His still position protected him by keeping his little part of the roof dry. 

He finished his blunt and dropped it to the balcony below to grab later, and looked out at the dying sun. The sky was every single colour on the spectrum, fading into the dark blue that would eventually look black. Around the tiny spec of light was a beautiful pink, the same shade his mother had worn to ‘the mask of Zorro’ almost 3 years prior. 

He sat and stared, and thought slowly. The sun was going down on the day, just another day, just another tiny unimportant insignificant day. The rain wa falling, falling, as if it had a quota to meet on how much rain was supposed to fall that night, but still Bruce sat and stared, and thought slowly. 

He thought of what Alfred had said; ‘you could fall in this weather.’  
He looked back at the ground, the fleeting thought sticking in his head for much longer than it had when Alfred had first made the cautious suggestion. He could fall in this weather. He could drop and land on his head, and it would be seen as an accident. Even if they didn’t think it was an accident... it wouldnt matter.  
Bruce smirked, then smiled, then grinned broadly until he teeth were far apart in silent laughter. “You could fall in this weather,” he said out loud, tasting the words in his mouth “and I’d...” 

...and I’d have to scrape you off the ground.  
Bruce’s smile collapsed in itself. He looked back out at the last of the sunset, and when the light had finally died, he carefully got off the roof with the assistance of the gutter. He stepped from the balcony and was surprised to see a comfy towel on the table by the entry.  
He held it in both hands, staring down at it as if it were an expensive diamond.  
He held it delicately, retrieved the blunt and disosed of it in the bathroom trash, and stood at the end of his bed, staring at the laid out clothes. He stripped and started toweling himself off, looking at the spread of his his most comfortable clothes lying on his perfectly made bedspread, all perfect and comfortable because of Alfred. He thought of the meal being prepared for him- his favourite. 

Maybe Alfred missed Thomas and Martha Wayne as much as Bruce did. Maybe Alfred dealt with it better than Bruce did. And maybe Alfred would teach Bruce better ways to deal with his newfound emotions without the need to go onto the slippery roof half-wishing to fall off it and smoke weed. Maybe Alfred would sing him happy birthday and get him gifts and shepherd him through his teen years and guide him to success as his parents would have if they weren’t dead...  
or maybe Bruce would crumble. The ground had looked so inviting from the roof.


End file.
